


Not Until We Are Lost

by DaraOakwise



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: AOS retelling of a TOS episode, Episode: s02e08 The Changeling, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24372688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaraOakwise/pseuds/DaraOakwise
Summary: While on patrol in deep space during the five year mission, the Enterprise is attacked by a mysterious probe capable of wiping out biological life in entire systems. While Kirk and Spock fight a battle of wits and logic with the fate of the Federation on the line, two members of the crew fight a much more personal battle for their lives. An alternate original series retelling of the original series episode “The Changeling.”
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	Not Until We Are Lost

The end of Alpha Shift usually brought together most of the Enterprise’s officers in the officer’s mess and rec room. Some food, quite a lot of beer, always music—a much-welcomed chance to unwind after a long shift. The Captain, first officer, and chief engineer didn’t appear very often; the ship’s three most senior officers tended to work deep into Beta Shift and beyond, but Doctor McCoy had been making threats to remove all three from duty if they didn’t ‘rest and relax every once in a while, dammit.’ So, tonight, Kirk and Spock arrived together shortly after the end of the shift, and Scott a few minutes later.

Jim Kirk waved his chief engineer over to a table near the front of a room. “I see Bones’ threats got to you too,” he said with a laugh.

“He _called down_ tae engineering,” the chief said, appalled, dropping into a chair next to his CO. “I tried to explain tae him that the port nacelle is throwing off nasty readings, but he didna care.”

“If it makes you feel better, Uhura promised to sing for us tonight, and Bones brought some old bourbon,” Kirk said with a shrug.

“Aye. Well, I hope he thinks that is worth exploding for,” Scott said. 

“I’m sitting right here, you know,” McCoy grumped. “And you are both blatantly disregarding my instructions that the dress code for tonight was civvies.”

“All my shirts have turned red,” Scott said with a grin. He drummed his fingers on the table and stood up. “I’m going tae get some food and then go talk tae Chekov about a crazy-arse artificial wormhole equation he’s been kicking around.”

“You’re supposed to relax, Scotty,” Kirk chided over his shoulder.

“I am relaxing, sir!” the engineer called back.

Kirk shook his head, took a sip of his beer, and glanced ruefully at the Doctor. “You tried, Bones.”

“I’ll just have to get him drunk,” McCoy grumbled from where he was slouched across the table, and then he sat up. “Oh, she _is_ going to sing!” 

Uhura was stepping up to the sound equipment and the tiny stage. “Stop,” she laughed over the appreciative cheers and table thumping. “I’m Nyota Uhura, and I’m going to sing for you tonight. Something soft and sweet, friends, or sizzling and sexy?” 

“Both!” more than a few people called from the crowd.

“Oh, it’s going to be that way, is it?” she teased, to laughter. “Here we go, hang onto your asses,” she called, and the music started.

“She really is amazing,” Kirk said, drinking down his beer. “And this was a good idea. Thanks, Bones.”

“‘Course it was,” McCoy said, and poured some bourbon. He slapped Kirk’s hand aside. “Not for you,” he said, and walked up to the stage and handed it to Uhura, who took an appreciative sip at the end of her song. 

“Damnnn,” she said to the crowd. “This is the good stuff. In honor of Leonard McCoy and old spirits, something slow and sweet now,” she said, and gestured Spock up with his ka'athyra.

“Spock is pretty good too,” Kirk said mellowly, accepting McCoy’s second glass of bourbon. The Captain stretched his feet out on an adjacent chair, and watched his oldest friend circulate through his officers, dispensing the bourbon. He blew out a contented breath, then closed his eyes to listen to Spock and Uhura’s duet.

“Bourbon was inwented by a little old lady in Russia,” Chekov was saying, to general groans of protest. 

“Christine,” McCoy said, handing a glass to his head nurse, who was playing a lazy game of Scrabble against Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty, who were teamed up against her and not remotely holding their own. “Chapel versus one rocket jockey and two math geniuses who can barely speak standard. Hardly seems fair,” he teased.

“She’s kicking our asses,” Sulu agreed, taking the next drink.

“Scrabble was _not_ inwented in Russia,” Chekov said. “Because it is a wery silly game. Physics, though, is our national pastime.”

“Do _not_ , for the love of god, let them start talking about physics again,” Christine groaned. “I had to threaten them with weekly proctology exams to get them to stop.”

“And Scotty …” McCoy said, holding out a tumbler. “Don’t you fail me,” he continued when Scotty uncharacteristically hesitated. “This stuff is _special_.”

“You’re killing me, Doc,” Scott groaned. “But the port nacelle really is in a bad way, and it willnae fix itself. Especially if the fuckin’ chief engineer is drunk.” Bones put the tumbler in Scotty’s hand. “Och, fine. We’ve all got tae die someday. May as well be today. Oooh,” he said appreciatively on a slow sip.

“Told you,” McCoy said smugly.

“Who is next?” Uhura called, slipping easily into master-of-ceremonies for the evening. “Scotty, sing for us?”

“Ach, I don’t sing,” Scotty complained.

“I know better,” Uhura said earnestly. On his questioning how-the-hell-do-you-know gesture she winked and said simply, “last shore leave!”

“Oh, I have drunk Scotty tae thank for this? The bastard,” he called out, to general laughter.

“You usually do,” Uhura said, for a bigger laugh. “Come on, Scotty. You have a gorgeous tenor, when you want to use it. After all, music is just mathematics, engineer. I’ll even sing with you!”

“I am not near drunk enough,” Scotty complained. 

“I can fix that,” McCoy heckled, holding up the bourbon. 

Scotty rolled his eyes, and let Uhura tug him to his feet. He put his drink down on top of the piano, which was bolted firmly to the floor, and ran his fingers experimentally over the keys. “Out of tune,” he murmured to Uhura. “And I’m out of practice.”

She winked at him. “A bit. But they can’t tell.”

“Piano too?” Jim called lazily. “You’ve been holding out on us, Scotty.”

“Aye. My wee granny insisted. And it really is just maths,” Scotty said, riffing some quick jazz. 

“I could get into that,” Nyota said, moving to the music. 

“Next time,” he said with a smile. “Oh, I know!” he said with an impish grin, and tore off a truly filthy limerick to the tune of a drinking song.

Uhura punched him in the shoulder over the laughter. “Something nice,” she pouted. 

“Fine,” he huffed, and switched to something ancient and Gaelic, voice untrained but true. Nyota immediately caught the harmony; she didn’t know the words but could support him in a descant easily enough. On the next verse Spock strummed in on the ka'athyra, which blended into the mournful old Earth song.

Cheers and table thumping greeted the end of the song. Scotty shook his head, embarrassed and pleased, then stood and kissed Uhura’s cheek. “An honor, lass. And Mr. Spock.”

“Stay, Scotty, sing another,” Uhura said, but an engineering technician from Beta shift was lingering nervously at the door.

“Chief,” he called. “We’re getting…”

“...bad readings from the port nacelle, aye,” Scott answered, and handed Uhura what was left of his drink. She toasted him with it and drained it down. “Duty calls. ‘Night, lads and lasses. Save another glass of that bourbon for me, McCoy.”

* * *

“It was definitely a distress call,” Lieutenant Uhura told the Captain, all business the next morning, pressing her earpiece closer to her face. “Broadcast from the Malurian system on all channels. But I’m not getting any response to our hails, on any frequency, and no signal since the original broadcast.”

“There’s a Federation science team out here somewhere, isn’t there?” the Captain asked. “Manway? Any response from him?”

“Nothing sir,” she said.

“I am just getting long range sensor readings,” Spock said. “There are no life signs at all in the entire Malurian system.”

Kirk blinked. “That has got to be a sensor error.”

Spock shook his head. “I have already checked the sensors. There is no error.”

“There are over four billion Malurians in this system,” McCoy breathed.

“God,” Kirk said, slumping heavily against Spock’s station.

“Keptin!” Chekov called. “I’m getting a massive energy surge, headed straight for us.”

“Shields up; red alert!” the Captain shouted, a moment before the ship was violently tossed.

“ _Engineering tae bridge_!” the chief’s voice came. “ _What in the hell are you doing up there_?”

“We don’t know, Scotty,” Kirk said, straightening from where he’d grabbed the console to stay upright. 

“ _Well dinnae do it again_ ,” Scott said. “ _We’re losing antimatter containment down here_.”

“Shields down forty percent,” Spock said levely. 

“Another one incoming!” Chekov called, and the ship groaned dangerously as it absorbed another hit.

“ _Bridge_!” Scotty yelled desperately. “ _I’m going tae lose the goddamned containment!_ ”

“Shields down to twenty percent,” Spock said. “We cannot survive another hit.”

“Warp us out of here Sulu!” Kirk ordered.

“I’ve got nothing, sir.”

“Another surge building,” Chekov said.

“Source, Spock?!” 

“Unknown,” Spock said.

“Evasive maneuvers. Scotty, I need warp!” Kirk yelled into the comm.

“ _You’ve already got it!_ ” Scotty shouted.

“Negative, I have zero helm control,” Sulu said.

“Scotty, we’ve lost helm control. Just punch it from down there. Maximum warp, anywhere,” Kirk ordered.

“... _great_ ,” Scotty said after a beat. “ _I always wanted tae die warping blindly through a star. Or a planet. Stand by, this’ll take a minute_.”

“Energy surge incoming,” Chekov said. 

“We don’t have a minute Scotty! Punch it!”

“I’m picking up an object on long range sensors,” Spock said. “Very small; just over a meter.”

“Belay that Scotty! Hail it!” Kirk said, spinning to his communications officer.

“All frequencies now,” Uhura reported.

“This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. We are on a peaceful mission on behalf of the United Federation of Planets. Stand down your weapon!”

“Energy surge! … dissipating,” Chekov reported.

“Huh.” Kirk said in relief. “That doesn’t usually work. Scotty, stand down warp. Maybe we won’t die after all.”

“ _Still plenty of time for tha_ t,” Scotty complained. “ _We’re a mess down here_.”

“Sir,” Uhura said. “We’re being hailed.”

A strange, multilayered mechanical voice cut across the frequency. “Repeat your origin,” it said.

“My name is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. We represent the United Federation of Planets. To whom am I speaking?”

“We are Nomad,” the voice said. “We will come aboard your ship. Your resistance is futile.”

“Scanners?” Kirk asked Spock.

Spock shook his head. “It is completely shielded.”

“We would be happy to beam you aboard,” Kirk said with forced ease. He flipped a switch on his chair. “Scotty do we have power for transporters?”

“ _Transporters? No. Yes. Maybe. Stand by._ ”

“We are locked onto your coordinates and will bring you onto our ship, Nomad,” Kirk said again. “Do you have any atmospheric requirements?”

“We do not contain biological parasites. We are whole. We are Nomad.”

“Okay then,” the Captain said evenly. “A weapon, Mr.. Spock?”

“Or probe, or machine. It does not appear to be a ship.”

“Stand by Nomad,” Kirk said. “Scotty, transporters?”

“... _yes_.”

“Fantastic. Meet us in transporter room one. Bones, Spock, you’re with me. Sulu you have the conn. Send a security detail to meet us there.”

“This is a bad idea,” Scott said without preamble when they arrived in the transporter room. “That thing beat the shit out of us, from the outside, through the shields. And we are bringing it _inside_?”

“For the record,” McCoy said. “I agree with Scotty.”

“Noted,” the Captain said. “Store as much information as you can about it when you beam it aboard, Scotty, that’s all we have to go on. Maybe it will tell us something we need to know about this thing. Energize.”

The probe materialized on the pad, holding itself in the air. It was an oily black, with sharp corners and a rebuilt look.

“Welcome to the Enterprise, Nomad …” Kirk began.

The machine cut him off and floated forward under its own power. “You will provide charts detailing your origin. If you resist you will be destroyed.”

Kirk exchanged looks with his officers. “Sure thing,” he said with false ease. “Not resisting at all. If you’ll go with these gentlemen,” the Captain gestured to the security detail, “we’ll collect the necessary charts. Escort Nomad to the security department, please.”

“Brig, sir?” one of the officers asked.

“No, that would be unfriendly. Just let it … hang out a bit. I’ll be right there. The security department is well-shielded and doesn’t have any access to ship systems,” the Captain said by way of explanation when the probe floated out of the room. “I need brains on this. Back to the bridge. You too Scotty.”

“Captain, we cannot reveal the location of Earth or any of the other Federation planets,” Spock said as they walked swiftly down the hall toward the turbolift. “It destroyed four billion Malurians.”

“Maybe some sort of close up view that doesn’t give it any context,” Kirk said as they stepped onto the bridge. Sulu vacated the center chair for the Captain. “I don’t know. Do the transporter logs tell us anything?”

Spock examined the readings at his station. “It confirms something I thought I saw. Nomad is, at least in part, made up of a Vulcan probe. Very old, early warp. Designed for long-term exploration, capable of self-repair and self-direction. It’s mission was to seek for life in the universe.”

“If it’s a Vulcan probe,” the Captain asked, “why the hell is it calling itself ‘Nomad’ and destroying civilizations?”

“There were a series of Earth probes called ‘Nomad,’” Sulu said slowly. “Just pre-warp. Solar sails, they got close to the speed of light. Brilliant, actually, but obsolete the moment we learned how to warp spacetime. Also exploratory; programmed to go to a certain point and then come home. Maybe one of them collided with the Vulcan probe and they merged somehow?”

“I can see where merging something human and Vulcan might drive a thing insane,” McCoy said, thumping the arm on the Captain’s chair. Spock raised his eyebrows at the dig. “But how do two exploratory probes smashing together result in a murder machine?”

“The transporter logs aren’t as clear as a scan would be, but there appear to be multiple fused sets of technology. Perhaps six to ten,” Spock said.

“Six to ten probes crashed into each other?” the Captain asked incredulously. “Those odds are getting kind of long.”

“Not mathematically impossible, given infinite possibilities across infinite multiverses,” Chekov supplied with a shrug. 

“Statistically impossible,” Scotty scoffed from where he slouched near the lift, arms crossed across his chest.

“Agreed,” Spock said.

“Statistics are just bad maths…” Chekov started.

“...but functionally useful,” Scott shot back.

“Stop it,” the Captain chastised sharply, cutting off the argument.

Uhura frowned. “The question is why it stopped attacking us. It had us dead, which seemed to be its purpose, but it stopped after one communication. Why?”

“I may have an answer,” Spock said, looking up from his computer. “The Nomad series of probes was built, programmed, and launched from the Kirkuk region of Iraq on Earth. Kirkuk. Kirk. Some remnant of its programming to return home may remain.” 

The Captain blew out a breath. “I will take lucky over good.”

“Can we talk for a minute about what it said when it responded to our hail?” Sulu asked. “‘ _Resistance is futile_.’”

“It said _what_?” Scotty exclaimed, straightening sharply.

“You’ve heard the stories too, then?” Sulu asked.

Kirk glanced between the helmsman and engineer. “What are we talking about?” he asked.

Sulu frowned. “Go to any starbase or spaceport. Find the greasiest bar where the old spacedogs go for shore leave—freighter pilots, engineers on long-range transports, smugglers. Buy them enough to drink and eventually you’ll hear a story about something big and evil deep in the black. Frankenstein’s monster, building itself out of pieces of ships. Get too close, and it will take your body too, right after it eats your soul.”

“You’re giving me ghost stories?” Kirk asked wearily.

“Bear with me, sir,” Sulu said. “Every time you hear one, the old spacedog makes sure he finds you again before the Enterprise leaves. Always during the day, clear eyed and sober. They’ll grab you by the sleeve, and they are _terrified_. They want you to know it wasn’t a story. It was a warning. And if you ever hear the words 'resistance is futile’ out there in the black, you need to turn your ship around and run like hell.”

“Scotty?” Kirk asked.

“Aye. I’ve a mate on a freighter. About a year ago he wanted tae get together; he had something he needed tae tell me.” Scotty nodded at Sulu. “That exact story.”

“And he wasn’t just bullshitting you?” Kirk pressed.

“I know bullshit. This wasnae that. He was scared out of his wits. And when I say ‘freighter,’ I mean he’s a pirate. Suffice it tae say he isnae going tae be in the vicinity of the Federation’s fair Starship Enterprise unless he has very good reason tae be.”

“Scotty, why in the hell are you friends with pirates?” Kirk asked.

“Why in the hell would you think I _wasnae_ friends with a few pirates?”

“Good point,” Kirk conceded. “Here there be monsters. Okay. But you said the stories say this thing is big. Nomad is a meter tall.”

“A meter tall, and it woulda blown a Constitution-class starship to bits in three shots,” Scotty said darkly.

“Perhaps it is a piece of a larger whole,” Spock said. “Or a probe in its own right. The working theory is sound; the reports of an object that assimilates technology for a weaponized purpose are consistent with our observations of Nomad, and a more likely explanation than the random encounter and complete re-programming of more than a half-dozen vessels.”

“Which still leaves the question of what we do next,” Kirk said heavily. “We have a highly dangerous weapon waiting below, demanding that we provide it directions to Earth and beyond. If I have to destroy this ship to prevent that, I will, but I would prefer some options from my senior officers.” A heavy silence descended on the bridge. “Don’t all talk at once.”

“I have an idea,” Chekov said, raising his hand. “But I will need Meester Spock’s help. We could disable the nawigational computer. Then we have nothing to give Nomad until we can effect repairs. It would then take us, what, ten, twelve hours to fix?”

“Puts us dead in the water,” Sulu said nervously.

“But gives us time,” Chekov argued.

“Anyone have a better idea?” Kirk asked. “Okay. Spock, Chekov, break our computer. Bones, you and I will go give the bad news to Nomad. Sulu, put us in a circle and don’t let us crash into anything without the nav system. Scotty, fix my ship. Uhura, you have the conn. Go.”

* * *

When the Captain was onboard he was always in command, but he wasn’t always in the center seat. While Commanders Spock and Scott were there often enough, Kirk preferred to put more junior officers there when he could. At any moment, he well knew, the greenest ensign might be called upon to save the ship in the middle of a deadly crisis, and he would not have that day be the first they sat in the chair. 

With the Captain and Spock desperately trying to crack Nomad, Lieutenant Uhura was there now, cool, efficient, well liked and respected by those temporarily under her watch. She nodded a thank you to the crewman who handed her the midshift report, then skimmed it, singing softly to herself. She was not even remotely relaxed, but knew that the crew felt like if she was singing, the crisis must be past. They didn’t need to know that the ship was flying in circles and that the probe was getting impatient. She forced herself to focus on the report; mostly nominal except for a number of yellow-flagged engineering issues leftover from Nomad’s attack.

“Mr. Sulu, how’s the helm?” she asked the pilot. 

“Sluggish,” he answered, and she toggled a switch on the arm of the chair.

“ _Engineering_ ,” came the chief’s voice.

“Mr. Scott, helm is still reporting sluggish.”

“ _I just saw that in the report_ ,” he answered. “ _It’s probably something in the power relay behind the deflector dish, but before I spend the next six hours sweating in a meter-high tube with three techs, I’m going tae check helm control_.”

“Acknowledged,” she said, and forced herself to hum again before she closed the line to engineering.

She glanced up at the chief engineer when he stepped onto the bridge. If it was mid-shift, you could tell he was coming by the smell of ozone and the sharp tang of metal that clung to him. Uhura smiled tightly at him before he ducked under the console, then went back to the report, half listening as Scotty called up maneuvering instructions to Sulu to test the helm.

The turbolift doors hissed open again. “Trouble,” Uhura called urgently as the Nomad probe floated toward her, a mechanical arm extended. She shared a half-panicked glance with Sulu and Scotty, both of whom were on their feet. 

Scotty circled behind her to the communications panel and hit a button. “Bridge to Captain,” the second officer murmured. “The bloody thing is _up here_.”

“ _On my way, Scotty_ ,” Kirk said.

Uhura sat straight in the center chair, eyes locked on the intruder. She could feel Lt. Commander Scott step up behind her in support, moving carefully. “What are you doing here?” she asked it firmly.

“What is the meaning of the communication?” it asked.

Uhura glanced at Sulu, both equally confused.

“I don’t understand your inquiry,” she told the probe.

“The soundwaves at mathematical intervals,” the probe responded. “What is the meaning?”

“Music,” Scotty said softly. “It must’ve heard yeh singing over the comms.”

Uhura nodded and gripped the arms of the chair. “It is a form of symbolic communication,” she answered calmly. “It most often conveys emotion and feeling. Done for the purpose of enjoyment and unity.”

“Error. It is not logical. Unity cannot be achieved through individual distinctiveness,” the machine said, and directed a beam at the lieutenant’s head. “We will assimilate your understanding. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.”

“Shit,” Scott breathed as Uhura’s gaze went blank and distant. “Lieutenant! Let her go, yeh wee bastard...”

He was already moving when the lift door swished open, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy charging onto the bridge. 

“Scotty, don’t!” the Captain ordered sharply, but it was too late. The moment the engineer touched the probe it threw him violently back with a cold bolt of blue energy. The probe released Uhura, who slumped bonelessly in the chair, and would have fallen if Spock hadn’t caught her.

“Bones!” the Captain cried, but the Doctor was already running. He jerked the Medkit out of the emergency alcove in the wall and slid to his knees beside Scotty. A quick finger check against the engineer’s neck confirmed what he could already tell—no pulse. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything; cardiac arrest he could deal with. The Doctor pulled the medical tricorder out of its case and scanned Scott.

 _Severe_ neurodegeneration. McCoy scanned his body. Sympathetic, enteric, and parasympathetic nerves … spinal cord … brainstem. _Shit_. Entire autonomic nervous system just shot, in an instant. He’d never seen a death, short of disintegration, so swift and so irreversible. No hope; nothing at all he could do.

“He’s dead, Jim,” McCoy said, disbelieving, and the Captain flushed in rage and grief.

“Why did you kill him?” Kirk demanded, choking on the words.

“Non sequitur,” the machine responded levely.

“His goddamn biological functions have ceased,” McCoy said angrily, then stood to examine Uhura. He exchanged a concerned glance with Spock, who was holding her to him.

“Lieutenant? Nyota?” the Doctor asked gently, scanning her head.

Spock brushed her face with the tips of his fingers. “She is … absent,” he said, stricken.

“I don’t understand these readings,” McCoy said, frowning down at the tricorder.

“What did you do to her?” Kirk asked.

“Her data was assimilated,” the probe responded. 

“Get them below,” Kirk said, shaking with barely contained rage as he placed himself between the probe and his fallen crew.

The security officers—Bones couldn’t remember their names, he would need to try to remember their names—gingerly picked up the late chief engineer, dead weight in their arms, and carried him into the turbolift behind Spock and Uhura. Uhura stared at the wall, entirely absent, unresponsive. McCoy smashed the medical override button in the lift so they wouldn’t be stopped or delayed; straight to sickbay.

“Put Scott on the bed,” McCoy told the security officers when they arrived. He hoped, for a moment, that the more advanced bioscanners would tell him something different, but Scotty was completely beyond help. 

“Oh, no,” Nurse Chapel breathed, and then, like McCoy, absorbed the loss to process later and turned toward their living patient.

“Nyota?” McCoy asked Uhura as Spock and Chapel eased her to an adjacent bed. “Darlin’ can you hear us?”

The doors to the med bay swished open again, and McCoy jerked up, ready to defend his patient from the deadly probe that floated into the room, but Kirk and two more security officers were right behind.

“It says it can fix Scotty,” Kirk said tightly.

McCoy gaped at his captain for a moment. “There’s nothing I can do, Jim. If there’s a chance it will have to be soon.”

“I require data on the structure,” the probe said.

McCoy jumped to his feet and pointed at Spock. “Human anatomy. Neurology. Biochemical electrology. Plus Scotty’s hyperencephogram and, hell, his whole medical file. Nurse, cryobed, now. Drop his temperature to buy us some time.”

“External life support?” Chapel asked, reaching for the system.

“It will have to be the Type 2,” McCoy replied. “His nervous system is fried. Direct stimulation and oxygenation. Invasive as hell, brutal to recover from, but I don’t expect he’ll care.”

The Doctor watched impatiently as Scott’s body temperature swiftly fell into deep hypothermia, then grabbed the external life support and shoved the molecular filaments through his chest wall into his heart and lungs. 

“Pulse, Doctor,” Chapel confirmed. “And oxygenation at hypothermic-appropriate levels. But Doctor …” she paused, the words sticking. “He’s gone. Why are we doing this?”

“I don’t know,” McCoy said, and looked up at the probe, which was finishing with the flash dump of biodata that Spock had collected for it.

“The biological system is inefficient,” the probe said. “We recommend destruction and redistribution of its components.”

“Can you fix him or not?” Kirk asked, jaw clenched as he looked down with grief at his chief engineer. The probe did not answer, but extended several of its arms, touching the body, which twiched.

“Just a muscle reflex to electrical impulse,” the Doctor warned. “Get back.” The biosensors flashed, overloading, and McCoy whipped out a tricorder to monitor. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

The Nomad probe abruptly pulled away, and Scott jerked to life, fighting the life support. The monitors alarmed, not liking the movements in their hypothermic and full-supported patient, systems straining to auto-adjust. Chapel and Kirk grabbed him before he came off the bed. 

“Hold him!” McCoy cried, and grabbed a hypo. Beyond miracles, Scott’s eyes opened for a moment and focused, panicked. “Easy, Scotty,” Kirk murmured. “Easy, easy. Just rest; Doctor McCoy will explain later.”

“Go back to sleep, Scotty,” the Doctor said, and pressed the hypo to his neck. “Fucking hell, Jim,” he said shakily, and lifted his hands off the unconscious but living engineer. “Monitor him closely, nurse. I’m not taking him off of life support until we know exactly what that thing did to him. I want a full bioscan, and start slowly bringing his temperature back up. And get a triptacederine drip started because he’s going to hurt like hell.”

“The unit is repaired,” Nomad said.

“I’d like to check him out, if you don’t mind,” McCoy snapped, whirling on the machine. “A man is not just a biological unit you can patch together.”

“Easy, Bones,” Kirk murmured, then gestured at Uhura. “Repair that Unit, Nomad.”

”Not possible.”

“You restored Scott,” Kirk said. “And he had much more extensive damage. Why can’t you repair her?”

“The Unit Scott’s chemical-electric flow to its ancillary systems was damaged and required structural repair. This unit is not damaged. Its databanks have been assimilated and erased.” 

The mechanical pronouncement fell heavily in the room.

“Your charts of origin are required,” the probe continued. “No further delay.”

“Of course,” Kirk said tightly. “Go with these units and wait for me. Take it to the top security cell in the brig,” he ordered the security officers in an undertone. “ _Carefully_.”

“Erased?” Kirk said when the probe was gone, turning toward McCoy and Spock in shock.

McCoy fitted a monitor to Uhura’s forehead to enhance his readings. “What the hell is this?” he sighed, waving a medical probe over her head. “Catatonia? Petit mal seizure? Neurotransmitters are way down. But it’s not just that. Goddamnit, what _is this_? Spock, when a computer erases data, what happens exactly?”

“The data is not truly destroyed,” Spock said. “In a simple deletion, the access points are disabled and the storage area is designated available for overwrite.”

McCoy paused, a look of dawning horror on his face. “Right, this is a massive oversimplification, but biological memory is essentially a specific pattern of activation in neurons. The more you do something, the more you remember something, the stronger and quicker that pattern can activate. It can go the other way too; fall out of practice and the connection weakens. What if Nomad severely weakened her synaptic connections?”

“Designating the system ready for overwrite,” Spock continued slowly. “It is how a mechanical mind like Nomad would understand that process.”

“Come to think of it …” McCoy said, and turned to Scott, pulling up the readings above the bed. “His neurotransmitters are shot to hell too. Comparatively speaking, the communication of, say, instructions from the brainstem to the heart or lungs is relatively straightforward, those pathways set during fetal formation. I say ‘relatively straightforward;’ it isn’t at all, but compared to memory …” McCoy’s hands stilled as he poured over the data. “Son of a bitch. That’s it exactly. The thing blew apart the neural memory of Scotty’s whole autonomic nervous system, then rewired new connections to bring him back to life. It did essentially the same thing to Uhura, except rather than frying communications to vital systems, it wiped memory patterns within her brain itself.”

“Can they be rewritten?” Spock asked quietly. 

“In Scotty, to breathe it is essentially an impulse from neuron one to two to three directionally across his body … again, massive oversimplification but you get the point. In Uhura, just to know her own name, it’s neuron one, to, say, four million six hundred and twelve, to seventeen, to eight million three hundred sixty five thousand four hundred and thirty nine… there are hundreds of trillions of possible connections. If those patterns are gone then they are just _gone_. If we are lucky, if there are still traces, then maybe we can encourage her brain to re-engage those pathways. But there is no way of knowing if any traces remain. For now, I’m putting her into a coma, see if I can restabilize her neurotransmitters and give her a fighting chance.”

McCoy pressed a hypo into her neck, and Spock stroked her hair as her blank eyes closed.

“What does it mean for Scotty?” the Captain asked quietly. 

“It means he’s not coming off life support any time soon,” the Doctor sighed. “His autonomic neural connections are present, but weak. A person breathes 20,000 times a day; heart beats more than 100,000 times. Multiply that over a lifetime and the controlling synaptic memory is powerful and completely automated. Right now, he’s breathed, what, maybe a hundred times since Nomad reset him? A few hundred heartbeats? To say nothing of every other system he’s got. Jesus. We’re staring straight into the mysteries of life and consciousness here. And I’ve got two of them side by side.”

“You’ll get there,” the Captain said. He glanced over at Spock, who was sitting on the edge of Uhura’s bed, studying her face. “I’m sorry, but Spock, I need you …” Kirk started. 

“I am coming, Captain,” Spock said. He bent to brush a kiss to Nyota’s forehead, then stood.

Kirk reached out and wordlessly clasped McCoy’s shoulder. “Do me a favor,” McCoy said. “Kill the goddamned thing.” The Captain nodded, gave Scotty’s arm a pat on the way by, and stepped out the door. 

“We’ll take care of her, Spock,” Nurse Chapel murmured when the first officer paused at the threshold. 

“Thank you,” Spock said stiffly, not daring to look back, and followed the Captain out.

Kirk caught his breath in the hall outside sickbay, the familiar, crushing dread of the lives and deaths of his crew settling sickeningly in his gut. He knew them all. Captain James T. Kirk carried every one of their precious, priceless lives on his shoulders each day of this five year mission. But _Jim_ Kirk admitted that this one hurt, bad. Two of his senior officers, his friends, cut down right in front of him on his bridge. He knew Nyota’s parents and Scotty’s grandmother, for god’s sake.

“Spock…” he said to his first officer, hoping the words would come, knowing they would not. 

“I know, Jim,” Spock said softly.

Then they both straightened, the Captain and the First Officer again. “We have to end this, Spock,” the Captain said firmly, then he faltered. “How do we end this?”

“I have thought of a possibility,” Spock said. “But you will not like it, sir.”

Kirk pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me.”

“Since we cannot scan it, I may be able to ascertain information about Nomad through a mind-meld,” Spock said evenly.

Kirk boggled at his first officer. “Okay, problem one, that thing is a machine. Can you even have telepathic contact with a machine? Problem two, don’t you need to touch something to mind-meld with it? That thing literally killed Scotty when he touched it.”

“On your latter concern, our navigational computer is still disabled. We could tell Nomad that the only way to provide it the requested information about our origin is through a mind-meld. Respecting your first concern…” Spock hesitated. “Nomad stated that Lieutenant Uhura’s ‘databanks’ and been ‘assimilated.’ It is possible that her consciousness may reside in Nomad, and provide an avenue for contact.”

Kirk sighed. “You’re right, I don’t like it. One more problem. Nomad isn’t going to let us dodge again on the charts of origin; what are you going to tell it?”

“I will show it the location of Vulcan,” Spock said simply. No harm, of course, in revealing the location of an already-destroyed world.

“I don’t like risking your life, Spock,” the Captain said quietly.

“Nomad has the capacity to kill us all in an instant, Captain,” Spock said. “It is a risk I am willing to take.”

“All right, Spock,” the Captain said, his eyes troubled. “Let’s get this over with.”

It worried Kirk when Nomad readily agreed to the mind-meld. “Our defensive screens are lowered,” the probe stated. “The Unit Spock may touch us.

Spock pressed his hands together, then reached out. He jerked, pained, as he made contact, then began to speak, his voice stilted and mechanical:

“I am Linisau. I am logical. I am ordered. My function is peaceful exploration …. I am Tan Ru. I shall collect and sterilize soil samples …. I am Yatqap. I seek glory for the Klingon Empire ….” Spock moved his hands and circled the probe, voice straining as the overlapping programming piled into his mind.. “I am Nomad. I shall travel, then return to my origin …. I am the healing pod Mercy, I shall repair those in pain … I am Weapon, I shall destroy all that is not perfection.” Spock was shaking violently “…. We are perfection. We will add all biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. We are … we are …”

Then Spock’s voice changed, no longer mechanical. Organic, and agonized, and Spock was shouting: “We are living! We are here! Oh, the gods. We are trapped. Let us die!” And then, a whisper, and although it was Spock’s voice, it was also unmistakably Uhura: “oh, God, Spock.”

Spock was screaming. “Spock!” Kirk cried, and risked wrapping his arms around the Vulcan. He jerked him away from the probe and dragged him into the hallway. “Spock!” Kirk shouted again, and shook him.

Spock blinked, dazed, and slumped in his Captain’s arms. He reached out and grasped Kirk’s sleeve, grounding himself, then lifted his head weakly.

“It is a piece of a larger whole,” Spock said hoarsely. “One component of something vast, built of the wreckage of other ships and probes. However, it is malfunctioning. There is an overriding program, consistent with the stories relayed by Misters Sulu and Scott. Yet it also seems to be cut off from something critical to its function. As if there is a network, almost a collective consciousness, that it is missing. And without that, the underlying functions of its component parts are beginning to break through, in conflict with the overriding programming and each other. To say nothing of …”

Spock sighed, knees sagging, losing his feet, and Kirk held him firmly. “Just … sit, Spock,” Kirk said, and slid them both to the deck.

“To say nothing of the minds contained in the machine,” Spock continued softly. “Lieutenant Uhura being one of them. They are not alive; they are not truly even conscious. But they are present, perhaps in the thousands. The assimilation of living consciousnesses seems to be a primary function of the underlying program. The probe knows, in some way, that it is doing it incorrectly. It is possible that the bodies are required. But Nomad is compelled by its programming to assimilate minds.”

“If Uhura is in there, Spock … can we put her back?” the Captain asked urgently.

Spock shook his head. “It has been theorized that a living mind could be replicated in the circuits of a sufficiently complex computer. But to reverse it? No, Jim. Even now, we have an infinitesimal understanding of the immense complexity of a brain.”

“If we kill it, we kill her too,” Kirk stated softly.

“A copy of her, at the very least,” Spock replied in quiet agony. “I believe I know her well enough, however, to say that she would not wish to live trapped and without autonomy inside a murderous machine.” Spock stood up from the floor, and Kirk with him, hands ready to catch his first officer again. But Spock straightened, his strength returning.

“So Nomad is in conflict with itself,” Kirk said slowly, then looked up, his gaze steely. 

At that moment, the door to the brig slid open, and Nomad floated out. “We shall return to the place of origin,” it announced, and moved away. Kirk and Spock followed, concern growing as it became clear that the probe was heading to engineering.

Montgomery Scott’s handpicked engineering staff watched with both fear and unconcealed rage as the probe slipped through the department. Hotheads and geniuses, all, from the greenest tech to Keenser himself, they were each fiercely loyal to their chief. Kirk had to firmly wave them back; those holding plasma torches and heavy wrenches seemed ready to bodily attack it.

Keenser, in command of the deck in Scott’s absence, planted himself firmly in front of the probe as it glided to a halt outside the warp core. The probe extended one of its arms, and the sound of the ship abruptly changed. Keenser stepped immediately to warp control.

“The ship is inefficient,” Nomad stated. “We will make adjustments.”

“Warp nine. Nine point five. Ten. Climbing,” Keenser said to Kirk with characteristic brevity, so unlike his verbose boss, punching controls as he attempted to compensate. “We cannot take this.”

“Nomad!” Kirk cried. “Stop this! You will destroy the ship.”

The probe was silent.

“Nomad, your function is not to destroy!” Kirk cried. “You are a probe of Vulcan, whose function is peaceful exploration. Execute your function!”

“I ….” the probe said. “I …”

“You seek glory. You seek soil samples. You repair injury. You must return to your origin. Execute your function!”

“There … is conflict. There is … error,” the probe said, and then seemed to steady itself. “There is no conflict. We are Weapon. We destroy all that is not perfection. We are perfection. We will add all biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. We are Nomad.”

“You must destroy imperfection?” Kirk pressed, his gambit desperate as the warping Enterprise started to shake apart around them.

“Imperfection must be destroyed,” the probe confirmed.

“There are no exceptions?” Kirk pushed.

“There are no exceptions,” Nomad confirmed.

“YOU are imperfect,” Kirk roared. “You have destroyed a system. This is not peaceful exploration. This is error. You killed the Unit Scott, but failed to assimilate his biological distinctiveness. This is error. You healed the Unit Scott, an imperfect unit. This is error. You have failed to return to your origin. This is error. You have failed to identify your errors! This is error! You have failed to destroy your imperfection! This is error! _Imperfection must be destroyed! Execute your function_!”

“I …” the probe said. “We ….” It suddenly released the ship, which dropped out of warp with a twisting, pained groan that would have had Scotty shouting in frustration.

Kirk wiped the sweat rolling down his face with the back of his sleeve. “You people,” he said sorrowfully to the probe. “You, who have been killed by this machine, whose minds have been taken prisoner. You, who cannot rest in peace. Now is your chance. Kill it; be free! Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, if you can hear me, do your duty, with our love and our thanks. End this.”

“Error!” the probe cried, sinking to the floor, smoke streaming from its components “Error! Error! There is error! There is imperfection! Error! Destruction!” The robotic voice fluctuated, and it spoke, one final time, with a voice never meant for the cold tones of a robot: “ _Kirk get it off the ship now_!”

Spock’s head snapped up, his face rigid and agonized. 

“Anti-gravs!” Kirk ordered, and the engineering staff swiftly fixed a set to the probe. Kirk and Spock lifted Nomad and sprinted toward the turbolift, as the machine shook and sparked. Kirk flipped open his communicator. “Scotty!” Kirk grimaced at his slip. “Chekov! Transporter room one, now!”

The ensign was a step ahead of them into the transport room, powering up the transporter as Kirk and Spock deposited the probe on the pad.

“Beam it as far as you can,” Kirk ordered.

“If Meester Scott was here and we had a few minutes more, we could beam it across half the galaxy,” Chekov said. “As it is, I can give you 10,000 kilometers.”

“Do it!” Kirk bellowed, then called up to the bridge. “Shields up, prepare for a proximity explosion!”

“Energizing!”

The probe vanished, and a long moment later the ship shook violently; even at 10,000 kilometers the probe’s destruction was massive. The ship groaned in protest, straining under the surge. The lights flickered, then steadied. Kirk looked up at Chekov and Spock, the former, relieved; the latter, his head bowed in pain. They were battered and they were bruised, but they were alive.

Mostly.

* * *

Kirk slipped into the medbay deep in the middle of Gamma Shift, the lights dimmed for the ship’s night. Spock was already there in the dark, slumped beside Nyota. The Captain sat down in the chair beside Scott, and dropped his head into his hands.

“I have been pondering,” Spock said, his voice nearly catching. “If she wakes, do we tell her that a copy of herself died in the probe?”

“Spock,” Kirk said with a sigh. “That is getting a long way ahead of ourselves.”

“You are correct, of course,” Spock said. Others would have called his voice ‘even;’ it was not. “Your logic today has been impeccable, Captain.”

McCoy walked in a few minutes later. “Yeah,” he said wearily when Kirk and Spock looked wordlessly up at him. “That about figures,” then moved to check his patients.

Of the two, Scotty looked worse. Heavily sedated, fully supported by machines regulating his heart and filling his lungs and filtering his blood. They’d spent the afternoon and evening trying to wean him off; he’d get a few minutes before the directions coming from his central nervous system just seemed to wander away, completely lost on faint and newly-built paths. 

Nyota looked much more peaceful; for now, the only only signs of medical intervention under the thin medical gown were an IV in her arm and a neatly hidden catheter. But in truth she was deeply comatose and profoundly vegetative. 

Once McCoy was satisfied that they were stable and as comfortable as possible, he went to his office and returned with the last of the bourbon from the party only the night before, although it felt like it had been years. He poured five drinks. One for Spock, who did not protest as he usually would. One for the Captain. One for himself. The last two for their unconscious crewmates, carefully placed on the table between their bodies. Kirk leaned forward with a sigh and touched the rim of his tumbler to both glasses. Bones followed suit, but Spock could only stare into the depths of his drink.

There was nothing to say. Scotty would either heal, or McCoy would have to wake him and ask him how long he wanted to live this way. The last of Nyota had either died defeating Nomad, or was slumbering somewhere in the neurons of her brain.

“Gentlemen, go to bed,” McCoy said when the liquor was gone, save for the two untouched glasses, which Bones picked up and carefully poured back into the bottle. “For them, for later,” he explained. “However it ends.”

Jim stood up and gripped McCoy’s shoulder. “Good night, Bones. Spock?” he said.

Spock stirred; unflappable, composed—except to his two great friends, who knew better. 

“It's going to be a hard road, Spock,” McCoy said gently. “Get some rest. I’ll call you if anything changes.”

* * *

“Good evening, Mr. Spock,” Scotty said hoarsely from the edge of Nyota’s private room in the medbay, hands shoved in the pockets of a battered gray Starfleet Academy fleece he was wearing over the top of a loose set of medical scrubs. 

“Mr. Scott,” Spock said. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I’ve been targeted by all phaser banks,” Scott admitted. “It's the damnedest thing, but I cannae work out how tae eat. And I’ve got tae wear this,” he tapped a monitor fixed to the side of his chest under his shirt. “Because I keep forgetting how tae breathe.” He caught his breath at the end of the sentence. “Like that,” he finished ruefully.

“The Doctor would frown on that,” Spock said dryly.

“Aye. Seems tae make him cranky.”

“Would you like to come in?” Spock asked.

“I don’t want tae disturb,” Scott hesitated.

“You are not.”

Scotty came in, his movements still rough, and sat on the bed beside Uhura. She was sitting up, but staring blankly past Spock at the wall.

“Any better at all?” Scotty asked. “The Doctor let me sit with her for a bit this morning. I wasnae very helpful; I fell asleep.”

“The Doctor sees hopeful signs,” Spock said. “Her body is reacting appropriately. She is able to sit, walk with a guide, eat with assistance. Her mind, however, is in early infanthood. Tracking faces, following sounds.” Spock lifted his lyre, which was sitting in his lap. “I was going to try to play for her.”

“Good idea, Mr. Spock.”

“I was considering the song we played together that last evening in the rec room, if you are feeling well enough to join me?” Spock said. “Although if you are still struggling to regulate your breathing that may not be possible or advisable.”

Scott frowned. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Spock. We’ll give it a go, and if I cannae get through it I’ll let you know.”

Spock inclined his head in agreement, then began to tune the instrument, and Nyota’s face turned toward the sound. Scott ducked and tried to catch her gaze.

“Do you mind if I take her hand, and talk tae her a bit?” Scotty asked.

“Please do,” Spock said.

“Hello lass,” Scott said gently, and smoothed his fingers over the back of her hand. “Mr. Spock and I are going tae sing you a song. It’s one you know. We miss you, Nyota. Find your way back to us, aye?” He looked up at her; she was staring blankly past him. He kissed her hand sadly, then put it down. “Ready, Mr. Spock?” 

“I am; I’ll follow your lead.”

Scotty took a breath, then blew it out uncomfortably. “I’m alright,” he waved off Spock’s unspoken concern, and started to sing softly. Spock’s lyre joined him on the next note, then his voice, humming a deep unspoken bass. First verse; then another. And then, impossibly, unexpectedly _miraculously_ , on the third: _Nyota’s_ voice, in harmony. Both men fumbled the next line, and she frowned at them, the clouds lifting a degree. By unspoken agreement they rolled back to the first verse. 

By the third time through the song, she had leaned forward and taken Scotty’s hand in one of hers while she rested the other on the back of Spock’s neck. By the fourth time, Scotty had completely lost the song to the tears streaming down his face. 

“Tears?” Nyota asked softly, studying Scotty with a look of concern. 

“Aye, lass,” he choked out.

“Tears,” she said again, dazed but present, and traced the single line tracking down Spock’s cheek. Scotty turned away; the look in the stoic Vulcan’s eyes was one that should be written only in Nyota’s fragile memory.

“Let’s not push this too far,” McCoy said quietly from the door. “Scotty is about to fall over, and Nyota too. C’mon Scotty,” the Doctor said, and helped the engineer to his feet. He squeezed Spock’s shoulder. “Spock, tuck her into bed. Keep talking to her, I don’t care what. Poetry, maybe, until she falls asleep.”

Bones levered a shoulder under Scotty’s arm, and hit the lights as they exited the room. Behind them, Spock was murmuring: “ _two roads diverged in a yellow wood_ …”

“That was good,” Scotty sighed.

“That was _massive_ ,” McCoy agreed, and hauled the chief over to the private room where he had been staying. “But you’re trembling like a leaf, and the monitor is worried about your blood oxygen.”

“Ack, I’m okay,” Scotty said, his breath catching. 

“Thank you for your diagnosis, _doctor_ ,” McCoy said sarcastically, settling him into bed and pressing a hypo to his neck before checking the monitor. He frowned. “Your breathing today was crap. And I assume you didn’t manage to eat or drink anything?” 

Scotty shook his head. “Swallowing still isnae right.”

“Okay,” McCoy said firmly, standing. “I know you didn’t want it again, but we talked about this. Nurse? I’ll need a nasogastric intubation kit and intravenous dextrose.”

“It was good tae hear her voice,” Scotty said, fighting against the sedative from the hypo.

“Yeah,” McCoy said, hanging the bag of fluid and starting the IV. “Hopefully tomorrow we’ll hear more of it. Now for some food. It’s …” McCoy held up the nutrition bag. “Brown. We’ll call it beef stew purée.” 

Scotty smiled faintly, fading. “I have an old bottle of scotch I’d rather share with yeh.”

“Total waste of good liquor if you ask me. Tell you what, I’ll drink all your scotch and pump some of Jim’s skunk-ass light beer up your nose instead. Tilt your head back,” McCoy continued clinically, a hand on his patient’s neck, feeling for alignment. “Good. Okay, deep breath, tube up your nose.” Scotty choked as it turned the corner down his throat, but McCoy didn’t let up. “Sorry, uncomfortable I know … done. Go to sleep, Scotty. You’ll feel stronger in the morning.”

McCoy gave a quick scan to confirm placement of the feeding tube, washed his hands, and walked back out onto the main floor where Spock was waiting for him.

“He’s not great tonight,” McCoy told Chapel.

“He’s been struggling all day,” she responded. “You know he’s not feeling well when he spends the entire afternoon complaining about the sounds the engines are making, but doesn’t try to leave sickbay.”

“True,” McCoy sighed. “We’re going to need to carefully watch his O2, he’s back to forgetting to breathe. And I’m worried that he still can’t get any food down. Leave a note for someone in Gamma Shift to research physical therapy exercises to encourage a stronger esophageal peristalsis response.” The Doctor turned toward Spock.

“She is asleep. She did eat,” Spock confirmed; he’d apparently been watching the struggle with Scotty. “Twenty-two spoonfuls from Nurse Chapel and me, and a full liter of water. She _spoke_ , Doctor.” 

“I heard,” McCoy said, amused.

“What does that mean?” Spock asked urgently.

McCoy smiled. “It means she’s still in there. That she has _always_ been in there. The music was an excellent idea.”

Spock breathed in like a man who hadn’t in a year. “I am sorry I involved Mr. Scott. I did not realize he was as weak as he is.”

“They take turns being worse,” McCoy grumbled. “It was his turn today.”

“Still. I apologize.”

“It was good for him to hear her voice too,” the Doctor sighed. “Good for all of us.”

“What is next?” Spock asked. “Some form of re-education regimine?”

“Nothing so vulgar,” McCoy said with a wave. “Look, Spock, I can see you trying not to get your hopes up, but tonight was extraordinary. I’ve wondered if she might have a response to music, but I was concerned that it might be something common to near-vegetative patients, like repetitive singing of their mother’s lullaby. That’s not what this was.” McCoy ticked off the points on his fingers. “She was singing a song she first heard once, ten days ago, in a language she isn’t fluent in. And I’m no expert, but she wasn’t singing it the same way she did at the party.”

“No,” Spock answered. “She was extemporizing a harmony.”

McCoy continued emphatically. “Immediately following that experience, she then recognized and named an emotional reaction in her companions. She was able to gauge that your reactions were atypical to usual expectations, but also that a single tear on your face — yeah, I saw that — is at least equivalent to Scotty crying like a baby. Finally, she reacted appropriately to those emotions based on the nature of her individual relationship with each of you.”

Spock held himself very still. “You are saying …”

“Yeah, Spock,” McCoy said with a grin. “She knows you’re her boyfriend. Look, tonight was a breakthrough. We expose her to experiences, support her medically like any traumatic brain injury patient, and then get out of her way.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Spock said. “I believe I will go give a report to the Captain.”

“You do that,” McCoy said.

“She _spoke_ , Leonard,” Spock said again, and stepped through the door.

“He’s downright giddy,” McCoy said to Chapel.

“So am I,” she answered with a smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

* * *

  
A sudden sound brought an immediate halt to McCoy’s charting. Scotty, who had commandeered McCoy’s office sofa after physical therapy for “reading” the repair reports that Keenser had brought him, blinked awake and shared a puzzled glance with the Doctor.

“Damn,” McCoy breathed, standing as the sound repeated. Definitely shouting and objects being thrown against a wall. “I’ve been expecting this.”

Christine Chapel and the therapists were standing across the room from Nyota, hands outstretched, trying to calm her and protect themselves from the projectiles she was hurling at them.

“I am not ….!” Nyota reached for the word, her agitation increasing when she couldn’t find it. “...stupid! I am not stupid!” She was weeping now, angry and frustrated. “What! What! What happened? Why won’t anyone tell me what happened?”

“Let me try,” McCoy said, waving the others back out of the room. “Nyota darlin’,” he said placatingly. “It is fine to feel this way. Your emotions are real. But you need to breathe with us and calm down, and we’ll help you work through them, okay? Maybe some music …”

“No music!” she shouted in fury, and he ducked to avoid the hypo she tossed at his head. “Leonard,” she begged, mood suddenly shifting. “Help me. I am so afraid. There’s a …” she reached for a word again. “There’s a …. dark. Lost? A road that is not a road that went somewhere before but doesn’t now. Don’t walk down it, no, no, stop! not that way there isn’t anything, the empty, so lost! Oh, God. The poet said the poet said the poet said ‘ _and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds_!’ the word for, the word for, the word for the _thing_!” She beat on the sides of her head with her fists, screaming.

“Lieutenant Uhura!” McCoy said sharply, and her head snapped up.

“Aye sir,” she said, and frowned.

“Find the words,” he said gently. “Tell us what you are thinking. And if you can’t find them today, we’ll find them tomorrow.”

She swallowed and looked down at herself, as if it was just occurring to her that she was standing in the medbay. She shakily took a handful of the white medical gown she was wearing, and sat slowly. “There is something wrong with my mind,” she said calmly. 

“Yes,” McCoy answered. “There is. But you didn’t know that yesterday, which is a step in the right direction.”

“Why. What …” the word was gone again; McCoy let her struggle toward it. “... Happened?”

“What is the last thing you remember?”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t know,” she said, starting to panic again.

“Not a trick question, Lieutenant,” the Doctor gentled. “You were attacked in the line of duty and suffered a brain injury. The nature of your injury means that the more we can push you to remember on your own, the better your brain will heal. But if you don’t remember it today, that’s okay. Maybe you’ll remember it tomorrow.”

“Spock?” she asked urgently..

“He’s fine,” McCoy soothed. “Out of his Vulcan mind with worry, but fine. He was here with you this morning; he’ll be back tonight.”

“Everyone else … anyone hurt?”

“You and Scotty,” the Doctor answered.

“Same?” she asked, tapping her temples.

“No. Same mechanism, different result. You’ll see him wandering around here. Remind him to breathe when you do, he keeps forgetting how.”

“Then it _is_ the same,” she said sadly. “Ask him about the road. He’ll know. Maybe he has the words.” She slumped back. “There is a word for the feeling of sleep of weakness of done.” She sighed. “Tired, Leonard. I am so tired.” She blinked, and stared at the wall, absently mumbling to herself, brain glitching on something half-remembered: “ _every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes as often as he awakes as often as often as often often often_.”

McCoy looked up at Chapel, who was waiting by the door. The Doctor mimed putting on a mask, sweeping his fingers in front of his face, and she immediately wiped the look of pained devastation off her face.

“Sorry Doctor,” she murmured. 

“I know,” he said, then turned back to their patient. “Christine will help you. Let her help you, okay?”

The door swished shut behind him and he sighed deeply. He closed his eyes and counted off five meditative breaths, which helped marginally with the soul-shattering weariness. When he opened them again, Scotty was leaning on the wall, looking at him. 

“She’s only just become well enough to know how unwell she is, and it’s scaring the shit out of her,” McCoy explained.

“Aye,” Scott said knowingly.

“And it’s hell to watch her struggle.”

“That it is,” Scott said “But that’s not all of it. When was the last time you had …” his breath caught for a long moment and he glanced away in pained frustration, rubbing hard at his chest, while McCoy watched sharply, poised to intervene. “...The last time you had a break, Leonard?” Scott continued hoarsely. “From your two pain-in-the arse patients underfoot who cannae get their shite together. There’s a mess hall on this ship, yeh know. Rec room. Just that way,” he gestured over his shoulder. “Maybe you should visit it?”

“Great. I cannot believe I’m getting this lecture from you.” McCoy sighed. “The crew is still pretty shaken up about you and Nyota. It’s just not quite the same in there right now.”

“Mmm. Then I have an old bottle of scotch in my quarters that I willnae be drinking anytime soon, since I can barely swallow weak tea. It’s yours; go find Jim and get rat-arsed.”

“I may take you up in that, Scotty, honest to God. Between watching you fight for air and her fight for words …” McCoy trailed off, remembered that Scott was his patient, and put his clinical face back on. Scotty shook his head. “She was trying to tell us something this afternoon. The wrong word, I think, talking about being ‘lost on a road that isn’t a road.’”

Scotty blinked.

“Scotty …?” McCoy asked, an edge of warning in his voice. “What road?”

“I don’t want tae talk about it,” Scott snapped. He sighed. “I dinnae ken. There’s this … you ever keep ending up somewhere you don’t want tae be? And by the time you remember you shouldnae be there, it’s too late? It’s … I don’t have the words. She’s the linguist; she’ll find the words. I’m just an engineer.” He clenched his jaw. “I’ll sit with her, until Mr. Spock gets here. I’m serious about that scotch, Doctor.”

“Scotty?”

“I don’t know. Leonard,” he articulated carefully. “And I dinnae ken I ever will.”

* * *

  
Nyota looked up from her data pad and tea.“Scotty!” she called to the man walking past her door. “Uniform!?”

He spread his hands wide. “Uniform,” he confirmed. “I am cleared for duty. Light duty, mind; no ‘crawling around in the nacelles dammit,’” he quoted with a bad southern accent.

“Come in; have some tea before you go,” she said, and he settled in the chair beside her biobed where he had spent a good part of the last month.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, taking the offered tea and drinking it slowly. 

“Good. I mean …” she hesitated. “Like myself, most of the time. I think. Although there are still some gaps. For example,” she held up one of her utensils from breakfast. “What is this called?”

“Ahh, a fork?” he answered.

She threw it down in disgust. “I knew it was something stupid,” she laughed, and he smiled at her over the rim of the cup.

“Scotty …” she said hesitantly, the mirth draining away. “They finally told me everything yesterday evening. Well, nearly everything; I get the feeling there may be things they’ll never tell me. But Spock, the Captain, Leonard told me what happened, to you and me. Let me watch the security footage.”

“Ah,” he said, and put down his tea.

“You died, Scotty.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Aye, well, I got better,” he said ruefully. “And honest tae god, Nyota, I woulda taken that over what we thought it did tae you.”

“I think they are going to discharge me soon too,” she whispered. “Release me back to duty. And I’m scared. Sometimes, I reach; I can feel myself reaching for something, and it just isn’t there. Just a great sucking hole where something important is supposed to be. And I’m so scared, Scotty. Aren’t you ever scared?”

He studied her face for a moment, then leaned forward with a sigh, elbows on his knees.

“First three days, my heartbeat just kept going wrong. Instructions between my head and heart scrambled to hell. I wasn’t awake for any of that; they didn’t want me awake for that. Once that got sorted they woke me up. I spent three more days in that bed,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, across the medbay, “staring at a wall concentrating on breathing, with Chapel or McCoy or one o’ the others standing right next tae me the whole time. And about once an hour, I could feel it getting fouled up, my body shouting panicked messages. ‘Aye, Chief, we’re dying here,’ and my brain’s mashing the button tae breathe, but the message is just falling intae a great bloody black hole. Nothing.”

Uhura nodded, her gaze locked on Scotty’s downturned face, pale at the story he was telling. She knew exactly how it felt. Scotty looked apologetically up at her, trying to figure out if he should continue.

“Go on,” she whispered, and he swallowed hard.

“And McCoy or one o’ the nurses is pounding on my chest.” Scott rhymically thumped the mattress beside Uhura with his fist. “Shouting at me. ‘Come on, Scotty. Breathe. Work it out.’ And they’re no’ looking at me; their eyes are glued to my oxygen stats, trying tae figure how long they can give me. And sometimes it would break through.” He took a shuddering breath. “And sometimes I’d wake up a couple hours later on life support again.” He swiped angrily at his eyes. “Turning intae a crybaby,” he complained. “It’s scary as hell.”

She reached out and took Scotty’s hand. 

“‘ _A man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost_ ,’” she quoted softly to herself. “I can’t remember who said that. I’ve been trying to find the words to explain to them what it did to us. And maybe there aren’t any, or maybe I just can’t, anymore. The best I can say is …. there is a road, that isn’t really a road. But you can feel it. It’s deep, and runs straight through you. This dark place, where some piece of yourself used to be. Mind,” she said, tapping her head before reaching out to tap his chest “or heart, or air. An important road, where you once walked without a second thought, now shattered to dust. And all you know that if you end up there alone, where there’s just nothing, you won’t make it back, lost forever inside yourself with no way home. It’s so easy to get on the wrong road, and that will haunt us forever.”

“Aye,” he said softly. “What do we do, lass?”

She tugged on his sleeve, straightening his stripes. “Put on the uniform. Go to work.” She wiped her eyes, then smiled up at him. “I’m going to miss you.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “We live on the same 700 meter long starship, lass.”

“You know what I mean,” she said softly. 

“Aye,” he said, then picked up the last of his tea and drained his cup with some difficulty. He gave her a lopsided smile, and stood.

“Come here,” she said, and grabbed his elbow. She pulled him down and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Wha’ was that for?” he asked.

She shook her head, holding his gaze for a long moment. “Get out of here, engineer,” she said fondly, swatting him on the shoulder. ”Don’t do anything stupid today, or Leonard will murder you.”

He laughed. “Could yeh imagine? Be seeing yeh lass.”

* * *

“‘ _Not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves_ ,’” she murmured to herself, smoothing her hands down the lines of her red tunic. “Put on the uniform. Go to work.”

“Are you ready, Lieutenant?” Spock asked gently.

“I am, Commander,” Nyota said, and stepped onto the bridge.

* * *

The end of Alpha Shift brought together the full complement of the shift’s officers in the mess and rec room for the first time in five weeks, when Nyota arrived at last with her hand in Spock’s.

She sat down, a little flustered by the obvious lull in conversation that her arrival had caused, while Spock collected their dinner.

Halfway through the meal, Leonard McCoy slid into a seat next to them, opened a nearly-empty bottle of bourbon, poured two glasses, and wordlessly handed one to her. Then he stood, walked across the room, and handed the other to Scotty, who looked up from a technical journal with an utterly bemused expression on his face.

Nyota blinked at the drink and frowned. Spock was watching her like he was absorbing something stoically, and Kirk glanced away and swallowed hard. “You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered, then scooped up her drink and headed toward Scott.

“Did Leonard just hand you a drink like it was what he was planning to toast you with at your funeral?” she asked, sitting across from the engineer and holding up her glass in explanation.

Scotty looked down at the identical drink in his hand and then back up at her. 

“Oh, for god’s sake,” he sighed.

“You know what? I don’t want to know,” she said.

“Neither do I, lass.”

She held her tumbler out. “Bottom’s up, Mr. Scott.”

He clinked his glass against hers. “Bottom’s up, Ms. Uhura,” he said, and they drained their drinks. He set his tumbler down carefully in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the flash of discomfort that flitted across his face. “Swallowing is still hard,” he admitted.

She nodded sympathetically, and toyed with the rim of her glass. “I can’t log in to my fleet account. I don’t know my password and can’t remember the answers to any of the security questions.”

Nyota glanced around the room, the moment suddenly sitting heavily. She could feel eyes on them, and a number of stares instantly skittered away. “Is it incredibly awkward in here tonight,” she asked, leaning conspiratorially toward him. “Or is it just me?” 

“It’s like they are all about tae break intae tears,” he said incredulously. 

Uhura shook her head. “Well, I’m not having it. Don’t go anywhere; one thing I remember for certain is that you still owe me some jazz.” She walked across the room, snagged a beer, kissed Spock firmly, and walked onto the stage, to a collective gasp. “I’m Nyota Uhura,” she called to the crowd. “And I’m going to sing for you tonight. Shall we start with something soft and sweet, friends, or sizzling and sexy?” 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> As she recovers, Nyota quotes from Thoreau:
> 
> By night, of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater. In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round -- for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost -- do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are. 
> 
> Henry David Thoreau, Walden


End file.
